Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom
3) Italicize those you plan on reading

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter Series- JK R
5. To Kill a Mocking Bird- Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faul
18 Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers- Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

WARNING

Preface:

                I am just warning you now, that this is going to be a strange story. No, seriously, you chuckle now, but you are going to hate me after awhile. You are probably going to get confused. I advise you to turn back now. This novel might even have bad language in it, so you might just want to save yourself while you still can, before your parents find out what you found in the school library and you never get to read a good book again. All because you had to be stupid and read the back cover and be all intrigued. Do the biology outline that was due Thursday. Call your sister. Call the internet pen pal that you are probably never going to meet face to face. Call your boyfriend or your girlfriend. Yeah, that is right. The one you are using as your reward to finishing a chapter of this damn book. Hopefully not the other way around cause if you are saying to yourself, I am going to call my boyfriend and talk to him so that I can then ditch him to read a chapter of this book, then I hate you. If that is the case, forget this book. Salvage your relationships. Because this book is not for forgetting and ignoring. It is for remembering, observing, and generally embracing life the best way you can.

                                                                                Signed,

                                                                                                Just a Powerful Girl

It's 3 AM and I can hear my mom upstairs in her room. She must not sleep very good. Not that I can talk. I could go to sleep, I just don't feel like it. Figure I'll stay up long enough to watch a movie.

Check out www.postsecrets.com to see my inspiration.

Then go to http://flickr.com/groups/tellyoursecret/pool/ to see all the amazing flickr people posting out their hearts. You will see me in the midsts as well MySpotlessMind.

Yesterday was not a good day.

My mind was on other things.

I hit myself in the throat with my very heavy sax case. It still hurts.

I hit myself in the eye with my knee.

Yesterday was not a good day.

I think there are going to be a lot more of these not so good days.

Here. I put my heartbreak into a photo shoot here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bree_zy-photos/

Sorry, I am too tired to deal with html right now.
 

Through a few hours starting at about 9 in the morning to 11.30 (now) I managed to write 4466 words for NaNo. I cannot believe that I was able to work at all before the bell tolled 12, much less get halfway through the goal for today to hit 50k and become a winner for NaNo 08.
Exciting times.
Of course, I may not hit that, partly because I told Will that I would try to come over to his house today (his fam is acomin over and he wants me to meet them, and although I have a fear of meeting people especially in close closed atmospheres, I would still like to go) and partly because I think that I might be about done with SB.
I know, amazing right? It turns out that with books without plots, you pretty much get to do what you want.

Shutter Bird count: 29412
The Last Child count: 15700 (just like it has been for the past week because I have been centered on SB)

I am going to be so excited to get to use Amber's "I survived the first 50k" icon!

I must go and eat now, since I have been typing like a feend and all I had for breakfast was coffee. And pee, speaking of which, haha.

Wish me luck!

I am in for another lonely weekend.

I'm already missing him. It's only been, what, a few hours?

But I guess I will be keeping myself busy.

I just got wind from NaNo authority (aka Chris Baty) that all the 2007 winners of NaNo are going to get totally free proof copies of their winning novel from 07. So that's exciting. I knew that they got that for 2006 winners from Lulu. But just now they got Create Space (another self publishing place) to agree to it. It's also doing it for the 2008 winners. Yay for me!
But that also means that I need to get my lil butt into gear and look over the 07 work of total crap. So that I can at least look it over enough and write maybe a little more bbefore I upload it and bind it and send it off to myself. Maybe I can get a little fun or just work out of it before I decide it's a big FAIL again.

I am learning to type with the stinkin carpal tunnel wrist brace. I hate it though. I might use it for a lot of my work but the ww, it's gloves off, hehe.

I'm working to make a few playlists that go with my stories. I've never done it before, so it's a little fun.
And I'm assembling stuff so I'll set to go. Like a heating pad and the bag full of microwaveable beans (this is how I warmed my hands up enough to do so many ww last year). And lotions- Mary Kay and Grapefruit. I might possibly hunt down a spare tuba chapstick as well.

OK, so here is what I finally decided about how I'm doing it.
I had my YWP wc set at 150k, but that made me incredibly nervous because I still am not sure if I can do it. So Amber of course, in her great wisdom, had the bright idea of using YWP for only one of my stories.
And so I decided this:
I'm going to still be using the adult NaNo site for both of my stories. But for YWP, it's only to get updated for the first story. Which will be The Last Child. And that's why I just changed my word goal to 75k.
Yay.

Now I really have to stop stalling. My computer is slow enough that if I open Word at any time, it totally craps up and I have waited until now to the open the 07 novels.
Here I go. Wish me luck.

I fairly much made this list for my friend Kaily on here, but anybdoy who is new to NaNo will of course be able to benefit (?) from it.

Bree's List of Recommendations for Preparation of NaNoWriMo
In other words, what you need:

1) Get comfortable moving around the NaNo forums, found here. Believe me, they will come in handy ALOT during the month.
2) NaNo Report Card: You can find these and download them off of the NaNo forums. I actually took both of the report cards I found and mixed them and switched them so that they suited my needs, but you can do whatever. You need a report card so that you can keep track of your wc during November, your ww count, etc. And just how daily life is going, when you can't blog about it all the time. I wish I would have had this last year.
    I prefer this one for not being confusing 
    Or this one. But I really don't like this one because it's way more confusing. However, I did combine the ww section of this to the first one.
    Atalanta's Version I haven't used this one yet. But I'm going to check it out once I'm at home.
3) Find a buddy: You always need somebody to hold on to when the going is rough. Just somebody to rant to that will actually know what you're talking about b/c they're doing NaNo as well.
4) Get used to the writer abbreviations. Such as:
    ww = word war
    wc = word count (this will be mentioned alot)
    mc = main character
5) Find a NaNo calander Desktop for your computer. You can find the thread here.
6) Take a dare! They are totally fun. I recommend that you look through it, copying (and telling the person who you took it from) it and putting it in a document for later use. You don't absolutely have to use it, but they're good for when the going's rough. Plus, they're fun to write, let off steam, and can be easily deleted in the second draft.
7) Read this book. It's free and plus the chick who wrote it is a published author who has done NaNo many times. It can't hurt in the least.
8) Read No Plot No Problem by Chris Baty (who is the founder of NaNo in case you didn't know why that name sounded so familiar). To tell you the truth, I still haven't read it, but it has helped a lot of people.
9) Get the word out. Send out an email to everybody who needs to know, telling them that you're going to be going NaNo (for the love of God tell them what it is!) and don't expect much from you this month. Last year I actually ended up doing this and I had gazillions of spare hours on my hands so I ended up not using it.
10) Plot out your story! I shoud have done this earlier in the list. You knew it was coming somewhere though. I'm using index cards to plot out major points so I can move them around.
11) Get homework that you need to get done, done! Projects due in November tend to be either ignored or hastily prepared and a crappy job done. So get them over with sometime in October.
12) Get caffeine. I really like coffee, though last year I found some yummy tea and hot chocolate.
13) Get some comfort food. Halloween candy is freaken amazing when it goes on sale. Plus, this year I'm going to get some Ramen Noodles, the kind that all you have to do is pour in hot water. Should be handy for those times that I stay up to 4 am writing and need food.

Amber's addition (also very helpful):
1)write like heck the first week because you will feel like dying week two

2)do NOT quit week two

3) I don't know about you but once I got in the groove of NaNo I found these 'magic hours' if you will, and I could write WAY better within those hours, like by week three it was pointless to even try and write outside of em. So try to write at different times and see when your best...which is hard for ppl who go to school, but maybe your better right after you get home, or maybe later in the evening. w/e

3) make sure you have a drink near by especially if it's a ww filled day because you will not be leaving your computer. (oh yea ww don't count as magic hours cuz you HAVE to write during those hehe) my snack this year will probably be my newly found lizard drink (omg bre soooo good) ((I call it my lizard drink cuz theres a lizard etched into the glass bottle, it's an energy drink)) and nerd candy ^_^

4) Prolly wanna at least have a list of random names so you don't have to call ppl friend #1 or weird abbreviations like HWB and MMC (hot wolf boy and main male character) my poor characters have no names . . . but I shall not continue this into November like I did last year!! Plus if noone has names then when they come into the story you get stuck on trying to find a name and then argh!!! you can't find one you like, blah blah blah, so just name him bob for now. just not HWB because that's just sad and confusing.

5)Get ahead as much as possible for thanksgiving, because you will not feel like writing that day. And don't say you'll just double it for the next day -_-

6) Don't worry about your novel being complete crap. It's beautiful crap, you'll fix it later. It's so much fun just writing. No editing. None. Don't even think about it. If you don't like what you just wrote, make it a dream or something, don't delete. OR you can make the font white for that part so you don't even see it! I did that.

Anybody else got something to add? Seems like I'm forgetting something. I'll edit later if so.
 

Yes, today I have been joyfully fiddling with the NaNo Report Card that I got from the site. A few of them actually. And combining them for my own purposes, etc. So I feel a little nerdy but also really really excited. I might try for a novel in three days, which I read a thread for on the forums.
Anyway...I'm excited.

This is mostly for my own purposes, btw.

What I need for NaNo 08:
- More coffee
- Cheap post-Halloween candy
- Ramen Noodles that you can just add water
- More poptarts
- Other foods that are really easy to just grab and eat
- A cleaner desk
- Finish writing down my plot ideas on index cards
- Start plotting 'Shutter Bird'
- Finish plotting 'Shutter Bird'
- Figure out if I have anything big coming up in November that I need to do before now (like that awful thing I have to write for UBMS)
- Make sure everybody I've recruited is ready (or else!)

That's all I can think of right now.

I have absolutely just started a story. Actually I started it last night when I was watching 'A River Runs Through It'. Wonderful movie, if you haven't seen it. I hate fishing and it's still one of my favorite films ever!

Anyway, I was watching it last night and I watched the part about Jessie's icky brother Neil getting on the train and a thought popped into my mind. How cool was that, that somebody could just stand at the caboose of the train and watch everything behind them. Which instantly conjured up and image of a faceless person standing there with their hands on the rail thinking life over.

And so there was born a new character into my mind. At first, I had the image of a rough looking girl standing there with slitted eyes and a cigarette furling smoke into the wind. But I think that that is a little cliched for me, so I am stepping off the boat into a world of new. I'm writing this from a young man's perspective. And I hold him dear already. Mind you, he'll probably be giving me hell.
It's so far set sometime in the 1920s. The first date that popped to mind was 1929 but eh...who knows.
Ah, Bree, you're once again getting back into the shitorical fiction scene. Hi everybody, I'm admitting myself once more.

When I first started writing, I got really excited because it felt like a short story. And I can never write short stories though I read a lot of them and I absolutely love them! But I've never been able to do it. I doubt this will stay short for long either. Knowing me, it'll end up being just another 300k project that will never be finished. Yuck.

He doesn't have a name yet, but he has a story. And I fully plan on telling it.
I was considering doing this as the other half of my NaNo this year but...I don't think so. It might get a little confusing for me, working with a different perspective. I think a switch from Jo to the comical chick for Shutter Bird/The Way Grasshoppers Do It will be confusing enough. With bringing an entire new sex to the board.

I have a few things for you too. This is the very beginning of the new story. It feels really good to be writing again, too.

Here we go again:
 

My obsession over wanting feedback on my photography on flickr has gotten to a breaking point. After thate dude slayed my stream, I kind of got to thinking. Maybe I do need to lay off trying to be a photographer and just take pictures and SEE if I'm able to be one.
I'm also tired of obsessing over getting in Explore. So I've limited myself to checking Scout weekly. Bi-weekly at most. So I'm off to check Scout now :P

Well, mind you, once NaNo starts, with my 150k to go and still doing lots of homework and making sure that Will still gets as much time as humanly possible from me (because it's painful for me otherwise), I might not worry about Scout so much.

Well today me and Mum headed to Lyon for the Fall Session of Nerd Camp. Went quite well. Mostly because it was a waste of time. I got paid $10 (all of which headed straight to Mom to help to pay off my $20 debt to her for camera), and then we listened to financial aid information, and divided up to register online for FastWeb. Doesn't seem like I really need it all that bad since I'm only a Sophomore and I really dunno where I'm headed. So by the time I'm actually in college or hs Senior, I will have had to make a new account anyway.

And I bought a bunch of clothes as Goody's too. Bought new pants and two shirts for FBLA. And other stuff too. New wallet that I'm proud of. Left my coat in the store. I dropped it on accident and had to go and find it again.

Went to The Dollar Store and found myself a new book and the cutest stuffed elephant you'll ever see. He's gonna be another NaNo mascot. Along with the horrid plush bookmark named Fuzzy Wuzzy Flatsy Watsy...something I can't remember and will have to look back through old lj entries to find...

And I bought some more stuff at JC Penny's as well. Yay for spending money.

I hope my new camera comes in soon. I was fucking around with the cameras at Wally too. That was awesome. Wally near me really doesn't have the camera selection they had. They had a Nikon D40 (Alicia I am SO jealous of you!) and a big Sony SLR all decked out with nice lens. And I think the D40 had like a 35 mm so it was way heavier than usual too.
But I'm not complaining. I'm sure I'll love my Fuji when she finally gets here (yes I'm sure it's a girl already).

I do not like this. My life is complicated enough without my friends waging war on each other. It's painful to watch. Like I'm watching the Civil War literally waging outside my window. And I can't fix it. But it's ruining us.

As if I did not already have enough going on in my life. Yeah, you guys might just learn what's been plaguing me lately. What I haven't been telling you. Ok, not plaguing. That's mean. But you might find out soon, depending on what happens. Or maybe nobody reads my lj anyway, so it doesn't matter either way.
Well I know Amber would like to find out! Haha!

Btw, I might be finding out quite soon. The eternity of waiting might be decided by Monday. Possibly before that. I just really don't know.
Amber, I really want to talk to you. I don't feel like sending cryptic lj posts your way. Please get online soon.